October 23, 2024
Madam President,
We thank Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for Syria Geir Pedersen and OCHA Director Edem Wosornu for their briefings on the situation in Syria. We also followed very closely the statements made by the representatives of civil society. We expect that the Special Envoy will continue with his efforts to renew inter-Syrian dialogue in line with Resolution 2254. We are still awaiting news from you, Geir, on the arrangements regarding the next meeting of the Constitutional Committee at a place that would suit all Syrians. We believe that you have the power to achieve that.
Distinguished colleagues,
I do not think anyone of you will object to the fact that the number of factors threatening the stability of Syria has recently grown considerably. And this is not due to the actions of the legitimate Syrian authorities or their errors, as our Western colleagues are trying to portray it. The point is precisely that, despite the highly charged atmosphere in the region and the real possibility that Syria will be provoked by Israel into a full-scale military clash, Washington and its satellites continue to pursue the same destructive and inhumane course vis-a-vis Damascus.
Nor has their policy been affected by the sharply increased flow of refugees who are fleeing from the IDF military operation in Lebanon, which per se poses major challenges for the neighboring states. According to the data announced today, more than 400,000 Lebanese and Syrians have entered the SAR in recent weeks, about 60% of them are children, 1,500 are people with disabilities, and over 3,000 are pregnant women. All of them arrive in Syria in poor physical and emotional condition. They need urgent help.
We would like to note that the Syrian government and local communities are “giving the shirt off their back” to meet the basic needs of newcomers. Moreover, they do it under the harshest unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US and the EU, which are essentially nothing but collective punishment of ordinary Syrians. According to the information we have, 20 temporary shelters have been deployed and equipped in areas bordering Lebanon. Displaced persons are also housed in hotels, mostly free of charge, and in private houses. There is also work under way to send children to school.
It is in Damascus and the surrounding areas that most of the displaced persons are settling. Special Envoy Pedersen and OCHA Director Wosornu did mention that today, and we are grateful to them for it. But we are extremely surprised that this fact does not appear in the UN reports. Nor is there any mention of the fact that the Syrian authorities are meeting every need of refugees and international organizations. Thus, they provide for streamlined entry to the country, and help the United Nations and NGOs to work freely at border crossings and feed the needy. The United Nations has to provide objective assessments of the Syrian authorities’ efforts. It is time to stop playing along with Western countries, which for 7 years now have not allowed the UN Secretary General to publicly distance himself from the 2017 internal Secretariat document called “Parameters and principles of UN assistance in Syria”, which is in line with the anti-Damascus policy of Western donors and contradicts the UN Charter and UNGA resolution 46/182 on humanitarian activities. I am not even mention the so-called “friends of Syria” – the Western countries sitting in this chamber. They prefer to talk about the horrors that they believe Syrians returning from Lebanon will have to face.
In the current situation, the UN Secretary General and his staff need to be more decisive and assertive, and insist that donors stop politicizing assistance to the Syrians. By the way, we have learned that certain UN agencies are currently working on some “Early Recovery Plan for Syria”. We would like to know in advance what this plan consists of. I think that this is what Damascus wants as well. We insist that the first point of this plan should be the rejection of any politically biased preconditions for launching development projects in the country.
We do not know whether the UN leadership summons the courage to honestly carry out its duty with respect to Syria and to prevent the politicization of humanitarian efforts in support of its population. But whatever the case may be, we are convinced that humanitarian bodies have the obligation to show solidarity with the Syrian authorities and assist them with receiving refugees and providing them with food, medical care and housing. Otherwise, all your pretty statements and appeals for humanity and solidarity are simply worthless. In this context, we welcome the efforts made by the countries that are not indifferent to collect and send aid to the destitute. Iran and Pakistan have already sent their humanitarian aid. The Center for the Reconciliation of Enemy Parties of the Russian Ministry of Defense has distributed food packages to refugees on a number of occasions already. In addition, on October 13, a charter from Moscow arrived in Damascus with food and medical supplies collected by the Syrian diaspora in Venezuela.
Madam President,
We see that the spiraling violence in the Middle East exacerbates the situation in the SAR with each passing day, putting the country at risk of being drawn into a wider confrontation. Apart from aerial bombardments and the IDF’s ground invasion of Lebanon, we are witnessing an increasing number of indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes on Syrian, including Damascus and Latakia. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, there have been 119 attacks since the beginning of 2024, 97 of them involved aviation and 22 involved artillery. Almost every day these attacks result in the deaths of civilians. Just before our today’s briefing, two people were killed as the result of yet another strike on the Mezzeh neighborhood of the capital. Such acts in violation of the sovereignty of Syria and other neighboring Arab countries, as well as the lack of any proper response from the UN leadership, leave us deeply disappointed.
Against this background, what remains (and always was) one of the key destabilizing factors “on the ground” is the unlawful military presence of the US in the area beyond the Euphrates and Al-Tanf in the southeast of the SAR. In those areas, active work has been carried out to recruit and train fighters for various terrorist groups, including ISIL terrorists, with whom (as we now know for a fact) representatives of the Kiev regime are actively interacting. Ukrainian emissaries, in particular, are very closely cooperating with the fighters from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group entrenched in Idlib; they exchange terrorist skills with them. And the United States and its allies pretend that they do not notice this, even though we are talking about internationally listed terrorists.
This kind of flirting on the part of our Western colleagues on the Council with the terrorists, as well as their attempts to use them for their own geopolitical purposes is something that deserves our strongest condemnation. However, Washington continues to occupy vast areas in northeastern Syria and to blatantly loot that country’s rich oil, gas and agricultural resources. Moreover, it continues to trigger the further worsening of the socio-economic situation in the country and is trying to revitalize the extremist underground in the Syria.
In this regard, we reiterate that we stand in solidarity with the legitimate demands of the Syrian authorities for the withdrawal of all military contingents that are unlawfully present in the country violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and we support Syria’s demands for the immediate cessation of air strikes against the country that flagrantly breach international law.
Madam President,
We also call on the leadership of specialized UN agencies to conduct coordinated work to mobilize funding for Syria, at least within the parameters that have already been pledged to that country by the governments of a number of countries. As of today, the UN humanitarian appeal for Syria is only 27% funded, which is unacceptably low for a country facing such challenges. Syria has huge potential. And if no one impedes its potential nor plunders its resources, the country will be able to stand firmly on its own two feet.
What makes us optimistic is, in particular, the fact that Syria has been able to keep its very high human potential even after 13 years of severe hardships and unscrupulous efforts to undermine its sovereignty and statehood. Thus, it is no coincidence that the University of Damascus was recently included in the international rating of the best universities in the world. We call on all those who seek to truly uphold universal humanitarian principles rather than using them as a cover for their geopolitical games, to extend a helping hand to Syrians in their hour of need and contribute to the future of that country.
I thank you.